Am I in an abusive relationship?

[nicecupatea]

Hello,

DH and I rowed horribly last week and he pushed me against the wall and shouted "I'm going to kill you" right in my face. He left/I kicked him out and I've been to see a counsellor.

As I expected, she is telling me that I am in an abusive relationship that could get worse if I dont set limits (keep him out of the house and only see him at therapy sessions)

I desperately want her to be wrong though, I dont want to be a "victim of abuse", I miss DH, I want to make up with him for our sake and our two year old sons sake. I'm scared that being apart may make things worse not better, but I am also aware that if I am not careful I really could end up in a very unhappy relationship which is worse than no relationship at all.

I think in my heart I know his behaviour is abusive (emotional rather than physical) but everytime I try and accept the idea I just collapse in tears, I just dont want this to be true. Could my counsellor (of 1 session of an hour and a half) be wrong? or am I in as deep a denial as DH is?

Sorry op but the kind of behaviour you are talking about is abusive(I have had some humdinger of rows with my dh and he has never behaved like that).
Please dont try and justify his behaviour-its simply not on.Please continue with the councelling for a while before you decide what to do about your relationship.

You need us to tell you?
I'm sorry you are going through this, but of course your counsellor is right.
Keep going to the counselling. Have you any rl friends to talk to about this?
It's not the worst thing in the world to be a victim,it's certainly not your fault, but you can get through it
He said he was going to kill you?!!
The mother of his child?
You need to move, leave , change the locks.
Have you spoken to womens aid?

It was abusive. It probably would get worse if you took him back.

That is not to say that it cannot get better.
You need to be apart and he needs to acknowledge what his behaviour wad and take steps to fix whatever it is that was casing him to do it.

Please follow the advice of your counsellor.

Horribly abusive

You don't have to view it as you being weak and abused. But the fact is that his behaviour was threatening, aggressive, angry and abusive.

I didn't realise I was in an abusive relationship until after I left. Or I didn't acknowledge it.

It's hard, because we think, oh but I argue back! I defend myself! I don't want to accept this! I know he shouldn't talk to me like that.... so because YOU have that awareness you think you're not in an abusive relationship.

But after you leave you see that for as long as you were in it, putting up with it for whatever reason and however you interpreted it at the time, it was abusive.

I think it's great that you're actually seeing a counsellor though. STICK with that! Listen to her.

Read Lundy Bancroft's "Why does he do that?", it's on Amazon, or I got it from the local library.

You can then go through the chapters and see what sounds familiar to you - what other behaviours your partner is using which will tell you what you need to know.

ps nicecuppatea, don't berate yourself for being in denial. I think it's a natural defence mechanism to slip into. I think I stayed for as long as I did because I was in a kind of anaesthetised denial. I was trotting along on auto-pilot, which made it easier to cope with the ongoing situation, but that anaesthetised auto-pilot (denial) made it really hard to take the action required to change the situation, and also, the clarity to analyse the situation objectively. It came eventually, obviously, as I did leave.

Aye, denial is the body's self-defence mechanism to enable you to not face up to things until you're ready to. Because once you face them, you realise that you need to act upon them and you can't act until you're ready.

Thanks for your replies,

I think I DO know that he is being abusive, its just very hard to admit because that means facing that the relationship could be/is over.

I would love to believe that there is the hope of him changing, but at the moment he is refusing to accept that he has really done anything that bad, so it looks very grim

I dont have a lot of RL support, less at weekends, so thanks very much for your replies. At least this thread has kept me from doing something stupid like phoning him up to talk.

I have ordered "Why does he do that?" from Amazon, and some books on self esteem and I will stick to the counselling.

HerBX x posts with you there, I think you have hit the nail on the spot. I dont want to leave him, so I dont want to admit its true.

Been there nicecup.

When you wake up, you feel scared by how effectively you hid from yourself, how awful it was.

But at the time, you felt you had no choice.

Once you've faced up to it, though, there's no going back.

And it sounds like you're getting to that point.

fast forward 5 months... I am ashamed to say things have got so much worse and I feel so hurt and lost, guilty and alone.

I dont know quite how it happened but I managed to stop seeing the counsellor, put the Lundy book to the back of the bookshelf, get back together with DH and endure more and more rows....

On Friday 13th another big one errupted out of the blue and I lost all control and ended up screaming and shouting at him, and slapped him in the face. I have never done anything like that in my life and I feel so ashamed. I have given him all the ammunition he needed to blame me for everything, and lost my own self respect in the process as now no I feel no better than him. I am the abusive one now. Worst of all my two year old DS saw everything.

The guilt over what I have done/am doing to my son is overwhelming, and although I know that ending the relationship is the right thing to do, I have done it all in such a horrible horrible way. I shouted DH out of the door on the night and on Sunday he came by and collected all his things without saying a word to me. I feel like a monster.

I dont know if I am writing this to get the flaming I probably deserve or just because I am desperate for some contact. I have been all alone in the house since this happened. I have just made an appointment to see the counsellor again tomorrow but that feels like a long way away.

Nobody deserves flaming. You deserve a round of applause.

That 'monster' is not you - it is how he wants you to think of yourself in order to feed his desire to abuse you emotionally - that bit's worked at least. He must now realise that you won't take any more and will probably go and find someone else to pick on.

I'm surprised that you seem so regretful - you have done the right thing. Read back your old posts. Now you can live a calm and peaceful life with your lovely little boy.

I used to row with my H out of sheer frustration at his unreasonable behaviour and baiting me. I became a person I didn't recognise.

The 'monster' I sometimes became is in my past since H died.

Your monster is just a symptom

Someone said to me the other day that they'd argued with their wife - it jolted me into thinking; I had forgotten what it is like to argue with someone you are emotionally involved with

You will grieve for what might have been, but that was not the reality of your relationship and you are aware of that

Cuppa - you have done the hardest bit, well done. If you think it's right to you can apologise to your DS, now and when he's older, and explain to him that it was wrong to hit Daddy and you're sorry you did it. But don't tell him you're sorry you asked Daddy to leave. I would say get some advice from domestic violence forums on how best to explain to him gently and as diplomatically as possible why daddy has left, and reassure him that YOU are not going to leave or to send HIM away.
If you hadn't sent your husband away your son would stand a high risk of being abused or of growing up the same way. You know you have done the right thing - now you need advice and support, and quickly, from professionals about how to manage the relationship between you, your ex, and your son.

big hugs and best wishes for your brighter future

Well done cuppa, I feel proud of you. I have done the same thing, embodied the 'monster' that he wants me to be and I'm not a monster, I'm a desperate wife who is being shat upon from a great height with all the selfishness of male ego possible. I have asked/told/ screeched at my partner to leave rather than stay and emotionally abuse me and the kids but he won't go. He just won't go becuase he won't accept responsibility for his actions and that is where the frustration lies. Exposed to such levels of unreasonableness it is actually NORMAL to slap him although obviously not helpful in the long run. You reacted normally to an abnormal situation and I'm doing the same although I haven't resorted to handbag bashing since. I need to leave becuase he won't and it infuriates me that he will force me to be the villain, the one who breaks up the family when he is the one perpertrating the horror. Sorry, it's become about me, didn't mean that. I hope your life will be happier now, I know it will. Keep posting and goodluckx

Cuppa, going to see the counsellor is the best thing you could have done.

When you are in a relationship like that, having constant rows and being pushed and pushed, there is bound to be a time when you loose it. That's what you did. You are not as bad as he is nor have you become abusive whereas he isn't anymore.

Also don't worry about your 2yo. He is unlikely to have clear memory about what happened.

Re your H leaving. Remember what your counsellor said the very first time you went to see her. 'You are in an abusive relationship which could get much much worse'. You are not a monster to have ended an abusive relationship. You are not a monster to have kicked out a man that shouted to your face he wanted to kill you. You are not a monter to get rid of a man who is happy to put all the responsability to you forgetting easily all his faullts and major misbehaviours. I mean has he ever done anything to try and iprove your reltionship and stop the arguments??? I guess not.

Thanks ladies,

I am struggling really hard to keep it all straight in my head at the moment, I'm re-reading Lundy's book and although it was making me feel worse for a while its now helping. Its still hard to square the slap, every time I read about how there is no acceptable excuse for violence - justifying it by the fact that he pushed me to do it, is really using his type of line of defence, so I dont really like that. Equally, if I am honest, I dont actually feel sorry for it. I feel bad for the consequences of what it has done to my reputation and that it has hurt my son seeing it, but not for actually hurting DH - which again is the type of thought process that the abuser has in Lundy's book!

However, I am also reading about the many many other abusive tactics that DH has been using, that I have not, nor would ever want to do myself.

I am also really struggling with the grief of the end of the relationship and that is really confusing me. I KNOW its unhealthy and must end - so why do I feel so sad and desperate and like I just want to get back together again!! I am fighting back tears all day long, I feel lonely and depressed and just wish I didnt have to suffer like this.

barbie I do get that he is manipulating me. Its very hard for me to accept because I love him (how can someone I love do that to me?) I am struggling to understand if its is deliberate or sub-concious (and therefore excusable/curable?)

newfashionedmum thanks for the advice about DS. I had apologised to him, but I hadnt reassured him about not being sent away/leaving, that is a very good idea.

merrywidow I am going to try and remind myself that the grief is not over losing something I had, but as you say, what I might have been/I wanted but wasnt really there.

dancerinthedark thanks for sharing your story too. Its "comforting" to know I am not the only person to go through this. I do feel like I have become someone I really dont want to be, not just because I slapped him but because I have no social life, lost confidence, ambition, financial secruity and so many other things. I really want to get the old me back, but also am scared to accept what has really happened.

carpetnomore thanks for reminding me of that. I find it so hard to keep focussed on what the "truth" is, because I have been listening to DH's version of it for so long. DH would swear he has "tried" to fix the relationship until he is blue in the face but all I have ever seen is lip service, creating diversions and denying that there is a problem in the first place. He is happy to attend couples counselling with me (we did for a few weeks in january) but all we do there is talk about his feelings and never address the problem of his direspectful behaviour towards me. He just behaves like an angel and the therapist thinks I am crazy to complain about him!

I am off to talk to my counsellor right now..

Therapists - nightmare sometimes! Where do they get them from? Sorry but I've had enough half-baked therapists to last a lifetime. What I found out recently though is that you get what you pay for

Good luck nicecupoftea

Well that therapy session certainly WAS worth the time and money (a different person from the couples therapy I mentioned above obviously) and funny that you mention it, but I did pay more for this one.

Couple therapy is useless for abusive relationships. It can even be dangerous, because coupld=counsellors are focussed on getting both parties to admit their faults, when in an abusive relationship it is the abuser who is at fault and the relationship would only be fixed if the abuser were to stop abusing. Which won't happen. Abusive men think women are inferior, and that a partner is an object to be owned and controlled.

If you were frightened of him or felt like sometimes you were walking on eggshells then it just isn't right. I was manipulated for years by my ex but he seemed like the respectable fun guy. When he was mean to me it was always my fault cos I pushed him to it or didn't pay him enough attention. After a while you start to believe it.
I used to wonder why my friends didn't have the same problems cos I just thought it was part of having a relationship.
Well done cuppa. I think you've done yourself a favour by maybe pushing things on a bit quicker but its the rest of your life you're talking about and you don't deserve being treat like shit.
I'm off for couselling soon so I hope my counsellor is as frank as yours was. You can miss the him you imagined was there but don't forget the reality cos thats the day to day.
Good luck with the future.

Just as an add on, I always wondered how do you know if you are in an abusive relationship. It's just the normal ups and downs. This is such a good place to get a wider perspective on it all.

springchicken I agree, for me couples therapy just made things worse

bananasinpyjamas It was definitely feeling frightened of him and realising I was walking on eggshells that alerted me to the problem in the first place. Since then I have read Lundy's book and taken a really close look at my relationship and I cant believe how many more abusive aspects to it there are, ones that I have just been turning a blind eye to or making excuses for because I didnt want to see it as well as ones that I didnt really realise were part of the same problem until now. Hope your counsellor is helpful.

I told a friend today about the break up, but also about the way he has been treating me for all these years and I feel so RELIEVED. Looking back I cant believe how many things I had kept quiet about because it was embarrassing to admit to having such a bad relationship or fearing that people wouldnt really understand why these things bothered me. I think its also really helped cross a line, now that I have "outed" myself it will be even harder to forget all about the problems and just make up with DH like I always did before.